Apple Drops iPhone Numbering This Year

With Apple rumored to be launching an ultra-thin phone this fall, the company might also decide to bring a new naming scheme for its iPhone line. It’s getting hard to keep track of what number the latest model carries, so now is the perfect time for the iPhones to get a new naming convention.

Why iPhones Need a New Name

Practically speaking, Apple can keep increasing the iPhone model number forever. On the one hand, it’s easy to understand that the iPhone 16 is a few years ahead of the iPhone 13. However, the numbering scheme presents more issues than it solves.

The most obvious thing is that there are too many numbers that are too close together. The iPhone 16 Pro uses an A18 Pro chip and runs iOS 18. The chip branding might not matter to consumers, but Apple markets the operating system and phone model in a way that they want those to be important in people’s minds.

The other confusing number variable is the year. The iPhone 16 came out in 2024. On this same trajectory, the iPhone 20 will come out in 2029. Samsung jumped from the Galaxy S10 in 2019 to the Galaxy S20 in 2020 to match the year and seemingly sidestep this problem before it got unwieldy.

If not numbers, then what? There are an infinite number of branding possibilities for iPhones, but if I’m making predictions, then I think it’s best to keep it simple. Apple is a company that tends to follow patterns and rely on past trends.

The iPhone Air Is Simple, In More Than One Way

Websites reporting on Apple’s plans for this year’s iPhone line have taken to referring to a new thin phone as the iPhone Air.

While that particular name doesn’t matter too much, I do think that giving it a unique name will help set it apart in people’s minds. And if it gets a new name, then it finally gives the company the best opportunity to break from the numbering convention.

On the way to explaining the new names, I think it’s worth explaining why there might be a new model at all. In recent years, Apple has had three successful iPhone modes: the iPhone, iPhone Pro, and iPhone Pro Max. But in an attempt to further expand its market share, it has tried to force a fourth model into the product matrix. First, with the iPhone mini. Then more recently with the iPhone Plus.

The pattern has been to have a regular size, a bigger size, a regular size Pro, and a bigger Pro size—for four main offerings. Reports suggest that sales of the mini and the Plus just haven’t been as meaningful as the company had hoped. In fact, the Plus might join the Mini in going away for good.

With a new iPhone Air, Apple could blow up positioning its iPhone line around size and reorient it differently.

Here’s what I imagine the iPhone line could look like in September.

• iPhone E
• iPhone
• iPhone Air
• iPhone Pro
• iPhone Ultra

On the low end, the current iPhone 16e could drop the number and be the entry-level model. Then, instead of an iPhone 17, the model would just drop the number. It would be the default model for a lot of people, which is just what happened to the base model iPad.

The iPhone Air doesn’t have a direct correlation with today’s phone, but it could be more fashion-oriented with a sleek frame and likely some enhancements over the regular iPhone in exchange for a higher cost. The iPhone Pro, with its traditional size, could have better camera optics and battery life, among other features, than the Air.

Rounding out the top end, the iPhone Ultra could get all the cutting-edge features that the Pro Max does now. When push comes to shove, Apple has leaned into putting the advanced features into the bigger size, even if not everyone willing to pay the money wants to carry the biggest phone.

The Names Are Right In Front of Us

This might be a bold prediction to make that the naming is coming this year, but seeing the names written out makes it feel obvious that it will come sometime. The iPad and MacBook lines already do this. The latest iPad Mini is just the iPad Mini. People are not currently using the MacBook Air 7.

The newest model assumes the role of the default product. It’s like how James Bond is always just James Bond, despite the actor or the circumstances.

Sure, a simple “iPhone” name might be a little confusing when you’re talking about multiple generations, but Apple has already addressed this with parentheticals and descriptors for iPads and other computers. Sometimes that’s the year and other times it’s the chip like (M4). I imagine the same would be true for any new iPhone that takes over the naming rights.

Now Is the Time

I don’t think there will ever be a clear-cut way to alter iPhone naming. To that point, Apple just complicated things slightly by replacing the iPhone SE with an iPhone 16e. That doesn’t exactly align with dropping the numbers.

But in this case, I think current sales are a prime concern and names can always be changed or phased out. As mentioned before for the proposed names, it wouldn’t shock me if the exact same iPhone 16e was renamed to the iPhone E come September.

There’s a small possibility that the iPhone 16e will get refreshed ever-so-slightly and become a new model with a new name. There have been iPads that have been refreshed after six months, so there is some precedent for it. The immediate urgency, however, comes from the iPhone SE not being sold in Europe. Apple wasn’t willing to forgo having a more entry-level iPhone available for more than six months. It needed to do something now.

If neither of those things happens, then the iPhone 16e will likely remain as it is alongside the newest models for a few years until it gets refreshed and given an updated name.

The iPhone line could really use a refreshed naming convention. A quick survey of people around me showed that they weren’t sure what the latest model number of iPhone was or which one they had. With a new entry in the product lineup, it seems like now is the right time to change that. I guess we’ll see later this year.